1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to portable device technology, and more particularly to collection and organization of data from portable devices.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Due to the highly mobile nature of the current society, many people find themselves performing tasks on the road that were normally done at a desk. From a technology standpoint, capabilities of communication and computing tools available at a desk far exceeds those used on the road due to portability and power consumption issues. For instance, computers available in the office are extremely powerful and fast, providing multitasking abilities with applications that require large amounts of processing power. These computers have large amount of data storage and memory capabilities with processors that are able to process large amount of data. However, for devices that are designed to be used outside of the office have performance limitations due to their portability. While many computers have been shrinking in size to accommodate mobile users, these portable computers (e.g., laptops, notebooks, tablets, etc.) are still relatively cumbersome to use, especially in tight spaces or while moving. Accordingly, electronic mail (“e-mail”) enabled handheld devices are tools of choice for a majority of mobile users to stay connected to the office during travel.
A limitation of email-enabled portable devices, such as a personal digital assistant (“PDA”), is that because of the limited amount of memory and processing power of the portable device, full email capability available on computers are not available on the portable device. For example, many email-enabled portable devices cannot access attachments to emails (e.g., an electronic document) because the portable device does not have the resources to store and run the application needed to access the attachments. Accordingly, email-enabled portable devices generally have the bare minimum email capabilities (i.e., text and basic graphics rendering).
Due to the basic nature of email capabilities on these portable devices, dissemination and collection of data from these portable devices become cumbersome. For example, if information is needed from a mobile user, a user requesting the information will preparing a message in an email detailing the information that needs to be collected from the mobile user. The mobile user who receives this message will have to parse through all the text to determine how to respond. The mobile user will then have to generate a new email message with the requested data provided in the new message in a way so as to allow the requester to be able to discern what the message is conveying.
Generally, such request for information and response can be handled efficiently with a form. A form may be generated with the requested data explained in each field and sent to the user. The requested information may then be input directly into the fields of the form and sent back to the requester, thereby simplifying the dissemination and collection process. Unfortunately, many email-enabled portable devices lack the capability of supporting such forms from being disseminated and collected for the reasons discussed above.